IKEA: linguistics, esthetics, engineering, part 2

Some assembly required.

From Olaf Zimmermann:

(source [2002 no. 5])

Olaf remarks:

By the late '70s IKEA had been very well established in W-Germany (I was living in Munich at the time) and had already become part of popular culture in more senses than one.

I found the basis for the content of the painting here.

Note that these ELKTÅUER instructions come with a few words, though mine for NEIDEN had not a single word.  Instead I had arrows and fingers pointing to where parts should be inserted and also directionality, including circular movement.

For those who are skeptical about the difficulty of putting furniture together following this kind of directions, with your mind's eye try to mentally assemble ELKTÅUER according to what you see in the drawing.

Swedish inte lätt / German nicht einfach!

It's no wonder that, as described in this comment, it took two young men 12 hours to complete the assembly of her new IKEA "davenport" (her name for the "day bed" she just acquired).

Selected readings

"IKEA: linguistics, esthetics, engineering" (3/8/25)

"Following Directions", The Language Fix (1/27/09)